Abstract

In this work we consider the pendulum mode thermal motion on the movable mirrors of standard interferometers for gravitational wave's detection. Thermal dependence with vacuum fluctuations or squeezed light injected into the unused port of the interferometer is considered. Two main results are found from this study, the first is that the minimal detectable amplitude becomes an increasing function of temperature. The second is that small deviations from zero temperature have a dramatic and destructive influence on the interferometer's sensitivity in both-vacuum and squeezed light-cases; remarkably the effect of thermal fluctuations becomes noticeable at extremely low temperatures for squeezed states with optimal phase injected into the unused port. We also consider the effects of non-unity detector efficiency (non-ideal detection). © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.